CHAMPIONS

I’m stealing this from my colleague, Dan Norton, because no picture can match this video he provided. I told him to be ready to record the final out, but Mahwah spoiled that plan by ending the game sooner than we expected with a beautiful double play on a short hop to SS Cole Fabio, who flipped it to 2B Adam Hanig, who fired it over to first to complete the 6-4-3 championship-clinching double play.

Anyway, what a day, what a game and what a season it was for Mahwah. Coach Jeff Remo called Saturday “one of the best days of his life.” Aside from the players’ resilient on-field performance (they overcame a four-run deficit), it was an impressive showing from the Mahwah crowd, too, both in numbers and crowd noise. Roughly a few hundred Thunderbird friends and family made the trip down to Toms River, setting up a great atmosphere for the state final. But one piece of advice to the Mahwah student section, wait ’til the music stops before doing your first-inning role calls. That’s Fan Cheering 101.

But back to the team… Who could have predicted that the Thunderbirds would be the only North Jersey team to capture a state championship a month ago. You’re lying if you say yes, especially after their first-round exit to 20-seed Rutherford in the Bergen County tournament. Man, doesn’t that seem like ages ago now?

What Mahwah has done the past few weeks is nothing short of remarkable. Winning a state championship is a big deal, and this group will go down as one of best ever in program history. Probably the best ever as of right now, and they did it from seemingly out of nowhere which makes it even sweeter (they started the year unranked).

Senior 2B and team captain Adam Hanig played just as big a role as any throughout Mahwah's run to a state championship.

Adam Hanig gave me a good quote which I couldn’t fit into today’s story in the Record when he said, “I’ve got some bragging rights now with my brother.” Hanig’s brother, Doug, was the ace of the Thunderbirds’ staff in 2008 when Mahwah reached the Group 2 final. But that year’s team lost to Allentown, 11-6. This year’s version finished the job, in pretty convincing fashion, too, taking down South Jersey champion Buena, 11-4, with 11 unanswered runs.

The Group 2 tournament began with 64 teams throughout the state, all of which were scattered throughout four sections… and it’s the Thunderbirds who now sit alone atop the Group 2 mountain. I was only there for three of the games, but it was a pleasure covering them for half their state tourney run. They all truly never cared who got the recognition and were just a selfless bunch of great ballplayers with no egos, who meshed perfectly, and always found a way to get it done, often dominating their competition. In their last three games, Mahwah outscored its opponents, 34-6. Not too many teams finish off state championships like that.

Mahwah ace Chris Baldi was as good as it gets during the Thunderbirds' state playoff run, picking up five of the team's six wins on the mound.

Chris Baldi grabbed most of the the late-season headlines with consistently dominating performances on the mound (picking up wins in five of six state playoff games) and finished the year with a nice 12-2 record. He was getting up there in pitch count late in the game (he finished at 118) and I asked Remo if there was ever any thought of taking him out. Before I could even finish the question, Remo responded, “None.” Aside from the Saturday’s strange second inning (when Buena scored four runs on three errors, two walks and two hits), Baldi was just about lights out again — as he’s been for much of the year –for the other six innings, allowing no runs on three hits with three strikeouts. He induced 11 groundouts and said his strong outing Saturday was thanks to that sharp, late-moving curve that’s been so effective all postseason.

And here’s one more quick quote on Baldi, who goes about his business on the mound in a very quiet, but always confident manner no matter the situation around him…

“I don’t know what we’d do without Chris. Thank God he’s coming back next season. Hopefully we can do this again.” Eric Kaplan said this, then I joked with him that five minutes hadn’t even passed from this year’s title before he was already thinking and talking repeat. (By the way, it’s not really out of the realm of possibility, as Mahwah will be returning a strong nucleus, led by Baldi, in 2013.)

But as brilliant as Baldi was during this unforgettable run, there were plenty of other heroes, too. I still say Cole Fabio is a great player, though he might need some work on stepping on home plate. In all seriousness, though, I’m glad that base running gaffe in the first inning turned out to be nothing more than a humorous side note (though I can assure you, at the time, Remo was anything but humored), instead of a costly blunder, because aside from that, it was a pretty dominant Mahwah performance Saturday. Fabio did end up going 2-for-4, with one legitimate run scored and two RBI in the state final and started the game-ending double play. He also ripped a bullet line drive to center in the fourth which was caught. I remember him telling me a Group 2 title was the collective goal after Mahwah’s sectional title win against Pequannock. Mission accomplished. And he’ll certainly be a player to watch next year.

Senior 2B Adam Hanig was also one of the centerpieces of this team. Forget about his offensive productivity (which was great on Saturday, going 2-for-4 with a 2B, one RBI — which should have been two — and two runs scored). What jumped out to me was his leadership. Before taking the field in the seventh — three outs away from victory — Hanig huddled the team up. After watching the game prior to Mahwah’s, in which Newark Academy blew a three-run lead in the 7th to Marist and lost in truly devastating walk-off fashion, Hanig’s message to his teammates was clear…

“We all saw what happened in that last game,” he said to the team. “Let’s go. Let’s finish this right now. Three outs away, here we go.” They took the field for one final time together and moments later, Hanig showed off his quick hands on the game-ending double play and the Thunderbirds were state champs. It’s gonna be tough to replace Hanig’s presence next year — both on and off the field. He also told me this year’s lineup became “unstoppable” late in the year, which is pretty much true. Just look at the box scores.

Time to talk about Brendan Brown. Just a hitting machine. As I was writing my story Saturday night, I felt bad I didn’t interview Brown in either of the past two games. But I’d say his bat did enough talking for him. Incredibly, Brown — Mahwah’s dynamic 3-hitter — finished his high school career going 6-for-7, with five runs scored in the two biggest games of his life. I don’t know his exact average, but it was .450 prior to the Group 2 semis, which means he probably finished the year somewhere in the .480 range.

Be prepared to see a lot of Matt Krupa’s name for the next two years. The Mahwah sophomore first basemen delivered, arguably, the biggest hit of the season in the Thunderbirds’ four-run third. Trailing 4-1 at the time, Krupa stepped up with the bases loaded and ripped a first-pitch curve — waiting on it beautifully — through the right-center field gap for a three-run double. Eric Kaplan – who loaded the bases with a walk — chugged home all the way from first and slid in just under the tag, setting off pandemonium in Toms River from both the boisterous Mahwah crowd and suddenly-rowdy Mahwah dugout. With one swing of the bat, it was a new game, Mahwah had new life, and also took back the momentum in a big way. You just felt there was no way Mahwah would lose after that swing, one which Krupa actually had to think about for a second if it was the biggest hit of his life before admitting that it was. Kaplan even jumped in when I asked the question and said to Krupa, “Dude, yes. State final? Absolutely yes.”

The bottom of the order got it done again Saturday, too. C.J. Musumeci and Shane Woelfel – both who will be back next year (Musemeci’s a junior; Woelfel’s a sophomore) — got on base 4-of-6 times and scored three runs. Musumeci finished 1-for-1 with two walks and started that four-run third inning with a line drive single to right and his courtesy runner, Greg Rozar, came around to score on Brown’s RBI single for Mahwah’s first run of the game.

And I can’t end this post without mentioning David Gagliardotto. On a team full of selfless players, Gagliardotto might be the most team-oriented of them all. He’s a senior captain and plays left field. But he doesn’t bat. He gets DH’d for by Kaplan. But Gagliardotto is, without question, the most vocal teammate every inning in the dugout, the first to dish out high fives, fist bumps and taps on the helmet when runners score. He’s the one who cheers on Baldi from the outfield every pitch and embraced his role on this team, never seeming to care he was getting DH’d for. You need guys like that to get to where Mahwah is today — Group 2 State Champions.

And oh yeah, Mahwah blew the game open in the fifth by exploding for seven runs. “Crooked numbers,” as Kaplan said afterward, seem to be commonplace for Mahwah these days. Here’s the quick recap: Hanig led off by reaching on an E6 and moved to second on an E6 on the same play. Brown singled in Hanig — officially the game-winning RBI — to give the T-Birds a 5-4 lead. Kaplan and Krupa both walked to load the bases. After a strikeout for the first out of the inning, Baldi sent a deep fly ball to right — good for an RBI sac fly. That made it 6-4. Then Musumeci walked to load the bases and Woelfel walked, too, for the easy RBI to make it 7-4. Fabio then knocked in two runs with single to make it 9-4. Hanig, who started the inning, then added an RBI single. And the scoring was capped by another Brown RBI single. 11-4, Mahwah. There were a few more errors scattered in there, but it was just a relentless inning from the Thunderbirds.

The scene once the final out was recorded was “like straight out of a movie,” as I overheard one Mahwah fan say. Another said something along the lines of, “Wow, this makes me want to win a state championship.” There was lots of dog piling, which the Mahwah fans were anxiously waiting to take part in with the team, lots of picture-posing, two water-cooler showers (one to Remo, who got water; the other to a Mahwah assistant coach who I never got the name of, but he got Gatorade), and just a lot of fun. It seemed like no one wanted to leave, and rightfully so, because what the Thunderbirds accomplished Saturday was special.

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Darren Cooper is from Slidell, La., and is a graduate of Louisiana State University. He covers any North Jersey sport — including soccer, gymnastics, wrestling, swimming and softball — within walking distance of an ice cream parlor.View all of his posts

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